This weekend the Australian Open comes to a crescendo. The Australian Open is a tennis tournamentheld annually over the last fortnight of January in Melbourne, Australia. Firstheld in 1905, the tournament is chronologically the first of the four GrandSlam tennis events of the year – the other three being the French Open,Wimbledon and the US Open. It features men's and women's singles; men's,women's and mixed doubles and junior's championships; as well as wheelchair,legends and exhibition events. Prior to 1988 the tournament had been played ongrass courts, but since then two types of hardcourt surfaces have been used atMelbourne Park – green coloured Rebound Ace up to 2007 and, afterwards, bluePlexicushion. The Australian Opentypically has high attendances, rivaling and occasionally exceeding the USOpen. The tournament holds the record for the highest attendance at a GrandSlam event. It was the first Grand Slam tournament to feature indoor playduring wet weather or extreme heat with its three primary courts, the Rod LaverArena, Hisense Arena and the refurbished Margaret Court Arena equipped withretractable roofs.
Today the men's doubles are being contested, with a finalsmatch between Austraian Oliver Marach and Croatian Mate Pavić on one couple, versus Colombians Robert Farahand Juan Cabal. The Colombians have notyet lost a single set in this tournament, despite a controversial call in theirmatch against Australians Sam Groth and Lleyton Hewitt, so they are the couple to beat. The men's singles finals will be held Sunday,but time differences being what they are, it will still be Saturday in somelocales for readers of this space. Inthe finals, Swiss Roger Federer will contend with Croatian Marin Čilić. Roger Federer will be seeking his 20th GrandSlam title in his 30th major final, and has not yet lost a set in thistournament. This is his seventhappearance in an Australian Open final, setting a new record. MarinCilic, has been gathering steam, winning close matches by force rather than byluck, and he'll be looking to win his second Slam. In his play against Federer he is 1-8, but hedid best Rafael Nadal in this tournament. | | | | The Ashes Series concluding in International Cricket, Englandand Australia turned toward the one day international matches. Although performing dismally in the Ashesseries, the English have surged in the ODI set of five games, winning 3 so farto Australia's 1. So, the hosts have noway of coming out victorious in the ODI series, even should they win theAustralia Day weekend match this Sunday in Adelaide. Players representing both nations are lookingforward to some much needed rest. In PGA Tour Golf, Tiger Woods has qualified for the finalrounds of a PGA Tournament for the first time since 2015. He was on his last hole in Friday’s secondround of the Farmers Insurance Open, a tournament he’s won a record seventimes. But this time around, in his first tournament on the PGA Tour in a yearand just his second in over two years,the former world number one ranked players in the world overcame the odds to make the cut. He begins final round play 10 shots behind ofthe pace-setting lead of Ryan Palmer. Play continues today at the Torrey Pines Golf Course in La Jolla,California overlooking the Pacific Ocean near San Diego. -- Posted By Rex to SR at 1/27/2018 12:52:00 AM -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "omnisport" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/omnisport. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
